Greece will head to the polls on May 21, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Tuesday, with a second ballot likely to be needed about a month later.
(Bloomberg) — Greece will head to the polls on May 21, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Tuesday, with a second ballot likely to be needed about a month later.
“The country and citizens need a clear horizon,” the premier said at a meeting of his cabinet in Athens. His term ends in July. If second elections are needed, they’ll happen by early July at the latest, he said.
After the deadliest train crash in Greece’s history, Mitsotakis’s center-right New Democracy party has seen its popularity in the polls fall, but it still leads over the leftist Syriza party of former premier Alexis Tsipras.
Greek Train Crash Raises Doubts About Mitsotakis’s Election Push
Even with a lead, Mitsotakis is very unlikely to be able to form a single-party government after the May ballot and the prospect of a coalition government seems slim given the percentages that the various parties are getting in the polls.
Following a change to the electoral law introduced by Tsipras, this general election will take place under a full proportional representation system that makes it almost impossible to have a one-party government.
In the event that political parties can’t agree to form a coalition government, Greeks will be called to vote again about a month after the first ballot.
The second elections will be held using a semi-proportional system introduced by Mitsotakis that will make it easier to put together an administration.
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